10 of the Ugliest Personal Computers Ever Made
I am utterly fascinated with old technology and how absolutely fugly some of it was. I mean, check out the following list of 10 vomitous personal computers and tell me you don’t look away in horror at least once.
1. H316 – Kitchen Computer – 1969
Um, is this a computer or a studio mixing board? The H316 was not only friendly on the eyes but practical as well – it would store all of your recipes on it for the meager price of $10,600. And yep, that’s all it did – store recipes.
2. Feedback Abacus – 1971
True story – in 1973 an Abacus came within minutes of taking over the world.
3. HP-9830 – 1972
This dandy number is in many ways the first true personal computer. As you can see, the nerds hadn’t quite perfected “aesthetics” just yet. The 9830 was not much of a computer, but it made an OUTSTANDING murder weapon.
4. Apple 1 – 1976
Cuz nothing says “the future” like stained wood and awkwardly carved letters. Looking at this vaguely cash-registeresque PC, it’s hard to imagine that Apple would become the powerhouse that it has. Little known fact: the first Ipod was actually whittled from a fresh piece of maple wood.
5. Philips P5000 – 1978
Ahhh, the very picture of compact convenience. The P5000 apparently balanced your checkbook and also doubled as a fridge. And I LOVE the trapper-keeper sized floppy disk drives!
6. Sharp MZ 80C – 1979
The MZ 80C looks like what you would get if you took all of the tackiest facets of late-70s technology and threw them in a blender. And then pooped on it.
7. SMT Goupil 2 – 1981
Looks more like a prop from a Duran Duran video than a PC. Is it really any big surprise that this pink nightmare was created by the French?
8. Triumph Adler TA-1100
The TA-1100: for the casual PC user.
9. IBM ICS – 1982
Holy shit, there is so much going on with this computer that I think I just had a mild seizure. By the way, can you imagine the countless hours you would have had to put in on this piece of shit just to get it to print out that colorful little graph?
10. Actrix DS – 1983
Is this a computer, or an EZ Bake Oven?
If you liked these, make sure to check out www.old-computers.com. There are 100s more there. It is an excellent site.
#6 Looks like the machine I used at the paper I worked at up until the mainframe had to be replaced for the new millenium. Those were ones guaranteed to crash at the advent of Y2K. My POS, however, started smoking one afternoon when some genius left a stack of prints on top of the monitor. Those puppies overheated like a menopausal woman with road rage.
thanks for the history lesson!
Dude…I’m a little shocked you didn’t include the TRS-80….that was one mad machine.
What will we be saying about our computers now in, say, 30 years when they are the size of my left nut and as lethal too?
soon, our children will be writing blogs about the computers we are using right now….I’m a little bit scared.
I think I used to own the Sharp MZ 80C…. And considering I wasn’t even born until it was nearly a decade old, that’s saying something.
donkeysosha…you’re a douchebag
That’s some great constructive criticism, gene!
It’s interesting to note that the Apple I was only a motherboard, and the user had to hand-made the case, so the one you’re setting as one of the ugliest computers ever made is not even official
It’s not fair that it’s on this list.
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Love your writting style. Made me laugh with each computer
All I know is that my first computer was a Tandy. And my second computer was a Dell (1992 maybe?). Both were strictly for the games.
How about Commodore PET?
hands of the Commodore PET, you brat!
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I had one similar looking to the last one. Basically it was just a word processor. I kind of thought the same thing and there were a lot with a similar style at the time. Though there were some similar to the modern pc too coming along.
#10 the Actrix Computer – awesome CP/M machine with inbuilt printer and modem and budled with dozens of top-line CP/M programs like Word Star, Calc Star, Personal Pearl, dBase and Fancy Font.
Love your writting style. Made me laugh with each computer..
Yet the Poor Tandy TRS-80 got the nickname Trash-*0.
Very nice list, but you forgot the Commodore PET (see e.g. http://www.computercloset.org/Commodore_PET_2001.jpg, or enter the term in Google’s image search) and the Osborne computer (see e.g. http://oldcomputers.net/pics/osborne1.jpg or Google’s image search).
why the heck does everyone want to add the PET to the list? the shell was designed by Porsche for f*ck sake!
damn kids, go away and lick your PS3’s or something. *grumble*
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Horrifying pictures.
What is the story behind the Abacus-near-world-domination?
Yet the Poor Tandy TRS-80 got the nickname Trash-*0…
Love your writting style. Made me laugh with each computer…
All I know is that my first computer was a Tandy. And my second computer was a Dell (1992 maybe?). Both were strictly for the games…
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Nice list
…did the first one really cost over $10000!!!!